Jeremiah Weeps for his People17"For behold, I am sending serpents against you, Adders, for which there is no charm, And they will bite you," declares the LORD. 18My sorrowis beyond healing,My heartis faintwithin me!19Behold, listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land: "Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not within her?" "Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign idols?"…

Psalm 143:7Answer me quickly, O LORD, my spirit fails; Do not hide Your face from me, Or I will become like those who go down to the pit.

Isaiah 22:4Therefore I say, "Turn your eyes away from me, Let me weep bitterly, Do not try to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people."

Jeremiah 9:1Oh that my head were waters And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For the slain of the daughter of my people!

Jeremiah 23:9As for the prophets: My heart is broken within me, All my bones tremble; I have become like a drunken man, Even like a man overcome with wine, Because of the LORD And because of His holy words.

Lamentations 1:16"For these things I weep; My eyes run down with water; Because far from me is a comforter, One who restores my soul. My children are desolate Because the enemy has prevailed."

Lamentations 1:17Zion stretches out her hands; There is no one to comfort her; The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob That the ones round about him should be his adversaries; Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

Lamentations 5:17Because of this our heart is faint, Because of these things our eyes are dim;

(18) When I would comfort myself . . .--The word translated comfort is not found elsewhere, and has been very differently understood. Taking the words as spoken after a pause, they come as a cry of sorrow following the proclamation of the judgment of Jehovah, Ah, my comfort against sorrow! (mourning for it as dead and gone); my heart is sick within me. The latter phrase is the same as in Isaiah 1:5.

Verse 18 - Jeremiah 9. 50. - The captivity of Judah and the deep sorrow of Jeremiah. Verse 18. - When I would comfort myself, etc. The text is here extremely difficult, and if there is corruption anywhere it is in the opening of this verse. Ewald and Graf suppose an ellipsis, and render, "(Oh for) my enlivening [i.e. an enlivening for me] in trouble!" Hitzig more naturally renders in the vocative, "My enlivener in trouble" which he supposes to be in apposition to my heart. Do Dieu (1648) wavers between this and the view that it is an address to his wife, "Quae marito solatio est." (See, however, Jeremiah 16:2.)

When I would comfort myself against terror,.... Either naturally, by eating and drinking, the necessary and lawful means of refreshment; or spiritually, by reading the word of God, and looking over the promises in it:

my heart is faint in me; at the consideration of the calamities which were coming upon his people, and which were made known to him by a spirit of prophecy, of which he had no room to doubt. So the Targum takes them to be the words of the prophet, paraphrasing them,

18. (Isa 22:4). The lamentation of the prophet for the impending calamity of his country.

against sorrow—or, with respect to sorrow. Maurer translates, "Oh, my exhilaration as to sorrow!" that is, "Oh, that exhilaration ('comfort', from an Arabic root, to shine as the rising sun) would shine upon me as to my sorrow!"

8:14-22 At length they begin to see the hand of God lifted up. And when God appears against us, every thing that is against us appears formidable. As salvation only can be found in the Lord, so the present moment should be seized. Is there no medicine proper for a sick and dying kingdom? Is there no skilful, faithful hand to apply the medicine? Yes, God is able to help and to heal them. If sinners die of their wounds, their blood is upon their own heads. The blood of Christ is balm in Gilead, his Spirit is the Physician there, all-sufficient; so that the people may be healed, but will not. Thus men die unpardoned and unchanged, for they will not come to Christ to be saved.